


flowers

by arochill



Series: Begin Again (Dream SMP) [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Character Study, Eret-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26987419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arochill/pseuds/arochill
Summary: Eret held a spider lily in his hand. It was wilting.He looked to the sky.(The world was quiet.)
Series: Begin Again (Dream SMP) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195076
Comments: 21
Kudos: 216





	flowers

_i. poppy_

Eret loved L’Manburg. It had been his home, and the people within its walls had been his family. He trusted them with his life and, in return, they had done the same. He built their walls with rough, calloused hands, with the encouragement of his friends, and it was some of the best days of his life. His hands were always in use, always working.

He fought alongside them.

He comforted them in times of despair, when all hope seemed to be lost.

The bonds he had with the men of L’manburg were strong. They had gone through a lot together. They had survived trials that would go down as history.

Eret remembered a time when, despite the war that raged against them and their hopes of independence, they at least still had each other.

It had been more than enough.

The throne he sat on now was lonely.

(His hands sat, idle.)

_ii. king protea_

When Eret made the choice to betray his family, he had left a part of him behind. There was a hole in him that he knew he would feel for the rest of his life. It was a hard choice but at the time he had believed it to be for the best. He wanted to be on the winning side in history, he wanted to survive through this war, and he knew that Dream could give him that.

He came out of the war with a crown and land.

He came out of the war with distrust in the eyes of his friends and smiles on the faces of his enemies.

This wasn’t what he wanted.

(What _do_ you want, Eret?)

He was different to the man who had fought on the side of Wilbur Soor and his men. He was different to the man who led his friends into a hallway and to their deaths.

He didn’t know who he was now.

A king, he supposed.

A king of what?

He was a king in name and nothing more. The people of the SMP would never be his subjects, no matter the power he claimed to hold. L’Manburg was free now and the Dream SMP remained under Dream’s control no matter what the man himself said on the contrary.

A king without power.

(Was that all he was?)

(Was that what he had become?)

_iii. snapdragons_

Deception was something Eret was intimately familiar with. It was something attached to his name that he would never be able to get rid of. It was all he was now.

_Traitor._

_Traitor._

_Traitor._

His castle was built quietly.

It was big, and open, and the rooms he built within were never complete. It was lonely.

_You did this._

Schlatt looked over L’Manburg, and next to him stood Tubbo. Deception was something Eret was intimately familiar with.

_iv. chrysanthemum_

Eret watched the walls come down.

He watched the pain etched into the eyes of the people stuck under Schlatt’s command. He watched as they forgot who they were, as the fear consumed them and they became different people.

He understood more than they would ever know.

Eret was not a good person.

(He did not deserve their forgiveness, but helping them was something he could do.)

Schlatt believed that, now that he was President, everyone was meant to serve him. He did not understand the way the server worked.

(This was to Eret’s advantage.)

Eret was King in name, and that was all. His crown was only a trophy announcing his betrayal of L’Manburg. Schlatt was not aware of this.

(“King Eret, I’m President Schlatt. I hope we can get along.”

“As do I, President Schlatt, as do I.”)

Honesty was not something Eret was known for. Schlatt did not know this.

_v. spider lilies_

Eret loved L’Manburg.

It wasn’t because of the land. It hadn’t been because he had wanted freedom. That had never been what he wanted. That was always Wilbur’s dream.

He had loved L’Manburg because of the people. Because of the smiles they gave him when he passed them by, because of the laughter they shared. Because they were his friends and he loved them.

He knew the people of L’Manburg would laugh if he were to tell them that — after all, why would he betray them if he loved them?

The answer was not an easy one:

He had left _because_ he loved them. And he didn’t want to watch them die for a cause that would not succeed. And he knew that was selfish. He understood that. But there was no going back.

There comes a breaking point to all things.

It may take a long time. It may come straight away.

For Eret, he had been waiting.

For Eret, it came the day he gained his redemption — and the day that hole in his chest finally allowed him to breathe.

Schlatt called for a festival, and he invited everyone on the server to join in on the celebration. (Everyone but Wilbur and Tommy, but this was a given.)

Eret, instead of joining in on the festivities, watched Wilbur emerge from beneath the ground, red stone covering his hands like blood, a haunted look on his face.

(The thing is; Eret was not a good person.)

(This did not mean he was a bad one.)

When the TNT detonated, when Manburg was obliterated and wiped off the map, Eret pushed Tubbo out of the blast zone and took his place at the epicentre of the explosion.

Everyone else was already gone – disappeared into the woods or into underground bunkers that would protect them from death.

(Eret understood one thing Wilbur seemed to forget.)

(L’Manburg was not the land they had claimed. It was not the walls or the flag, and it was not the freedom they had gained. It was the people. It was the hope for the future that the children of their country gave to them.)

When L’Manburg first fell, Eret was at the epicentre.

(Was the first time it fell when he pressed the button? Or was it the day Schlatt took power?)

When Manburg fell, Eret was at the epicentre.

(He would not let them die. They were still his family.)

His throne was covered in a thick layer of dust.

(His hands reached to the sky, black smoke covering what should be blue, and he wondered if this was the freedom Wilbur had fought so hard for.)

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally just word vomit. hope you like it anyway even if it’s not in anyway cohesive. flower meanings are interesting, and i couldn’t help myself.


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